Watch your thoughts. Thoughts become words.

Watch your words. Words become actions.

Watch your actions. Actions become habits.

Watch your habits. Habits become your character.

Watch your character. Your character becomes your destiny.

Unknown

Those persons can do nothing from faith who are first to attain to this that God is gracious to them only when they have at length fulfilled the Law… they will never be sure that they have a gracious God, and that their prayer is heard. Therefore they can never truly love God, nor expect any blessing from Him, nor truly worship God. What else are such hearts and consciences than hell itself, since there is nothing in them but despair, fainting away, grumbling, discontent, and hatred of God, and yet in this hatred they invoke and worship God, just as Saul worshiped Him.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. III
Of Love and the Fulfilling of the Law,
Triglotta 211. after par. 212 [not in the Latin]

Comment: Though the translation is a bit hard to follow at first, it is saying that if we feel that we first must attain God's grace by doing a prerequisite amount of goodness, we will never find God to be truly gracious. The motive for our goodness will be based on the law, rather on love for Christ and his forgiveness. Then we aren't much different from pagan religions that do good out of fear of punishment and hope of reward.

The Commandments… serve God’s saving purpose. They

shake man’s certainties,
demolish his self-defense, and
leave him all alone before the Holy One.

…God’s commandments are intended to bring terror. To weaken an enemy’s will is not necessarily a bad thing.

Jeske, Thomas J. Terror and the Christian, p. 8
September 2004. Forward in Christ – Editorial Comment. Vol. 91, No. 9.

Dr. Gordon Alles was a chemist who helped develop insulin as a treatment for diabetes. Today many still benefit from his research. Did you know, though, that Dr. Alles himself died of diabetes in 1963? He didn’t even know he was sick.

There is no greater spiritual illness than sin. But many do not know they have it.

Lauersdorf, Richard. Jesus’ Gift of Health
Together With Jesus

All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

Proverbs 16:2

Comment: It's not the outward action that counts; it's the motive behind the action that the Lord considers. This is why God says that a good work is not considered good, unless it is connected with faith in Jesus. So many people feel 'innocent,' but their rejection of Christ blackens everything they do, no matter how good we might rate it on a human scale. So... humane actions are not the same as godly ones.